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Janelle's diary
A diary kept by Flight 815 passengers Janelle Granger (season 1) and Chris Dobson (season 2) was available on ABC's official site. As this site was created by ABC's marketing department, rather than the creative authorities of Lost, its canonicity is questionable, and the diary contents nor its author was ever featured in actual episodes of Lost. For a transcript see: Diary transcript Background During season 1, Janelle Granger's diaries were published online. Granger offered the perspective of one of the peripheral survivors. She commented on the major events as they transpired, and her activities occasionally intersected those of the main characters, but ultimately, despite allusions to mysterious events in her life before the crash, her story added nothing to the Lost mythology. She mentions seeing what she thought to be a whale while swimming, though her description is only of a large dark shape and the hissing of air being released. Janelle's story apparently ended on the night when the hatch is opened; she describes "a bright fiery flash — then a loud bang." Her final entry ends with a cliffhanger: "Why is she screaming? Someone behind me? I can't find my bag— —" Her fate has yet to be revealed, but in the following season, none of the characters comment on her absence, making it unlikely that she was abducted or killed; she may have simply lost the notebook. In season 2 the diary is assumed by Chris Dobson. The tone of this second author, who claims to have found the diary on the beach, is more cynical than that of Janelle, and has grown increasingly belligerent and paranoid throughout the diary. The diary became a point of much discussion when Dobson seemed to identify the captive Henry Gale as his "brother," but later entries revealed that the actual brother, named Steve Dobson, was in fact on Oceanic flight 815 and died in the crash. Dobson's mind suppressed the memory and created the story as a coping mechanism. At the beginning of season 3, the diary is no longer on the official website, and all previous entries have been removed. Identity of the second author * Chris has pejoratively mentioned the clique of "major players" and "leadership council" (though, as we have seen, several main characters feel "out of the loop"). * Was present when Hurley passed out the food and remarked on the arrival of the tailies. * Refers to many characters in the third person (including Jack, Charlie, Sayid and Locke). * He doesn't know Janelle * Several passages call to mind what we know of the Others: ** Fixation on children: "We of course to are taught to understand the vital importance of children" (Chris also seemed to admire Charlie for his efforts to protect Aaron.) ** Whose island? The question of ownership: "Who do these people think they are? ... This is not their island" ** "...nothing can come to them a conflict with the Others but their own destruction" Is the diary canon? Much of the confusion surrounding the diary could be explained if it is not canon. The first part in particular seems to have no bearing on the official mythology. For example, the chronology of events as recorded by Janelle does not jibe with the dates according to the episode "The Other 48 Days." In the official podcast, writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse ridiculed a question regarding Janelle, apparently unaware of her role in the online diary . Another example is the novelization Secret Identity. Though the books are not considered canon, and both Janelle and Larry are in the book, questioning the authenticity of the diary and the novelizations. Also, the second author says his brother was buried at what he calls Boone Hill; yet the bodies of the passengers who died in the crash were all cremated when the fuselage was burned. Many links within the diary were broken, some entries were missing, and others existed in duplicate/triplicate. It seems reasonable that the site would have been better maintained if it had a substantial connection to the plot. One theory is that the standing rule is that the writer or writers are portrayed as simply crazy or otherwise unreliable within the story. This allows everything they say to be canon in that they are accurate in and of themselves, yet not to be taken 100% seriously. This allows them to tell us some tidbits ahead of time, like the fact that Mr. Eko was building a church, while more outrageous statements & actions can be ignored. External links *Fan transcripts of the diary (up to day 42) - Link down as of January 2008. View archived version here at archive.org. *Former Diary URL at ABC's site See also * Ben's diary * Claire's diary Category:Items Category:Deuterocanonical Category:Official sites Category:Websites